:::::: News ::::::

NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher had a special guest in his pits
during last February’s season-opening Winternationals. Schumacher had
personally invited his “number-one fan,” seven-year-old Bryce lafler
and his mom Jennifer to join him in Pomona, and through the generosity
of local businesses in their hometown of Amherst, Ohio, they were able
to raise enough money to make the trip.

John Stewart admitted his confidence took
a beating during the last couple of months. Released from the Morgan Lucas team
earlier this year, he bounced around a few teams before finding a home within
the Evan Knoll stable of race teams.

Following the Chicago event, Lucas
and sponsor Knoll made wholesale changes to the two-car team by moving Melanie
Troxel’s tuner Richard Hogan and a portion of the crew over to the Lucas car.
That opened the door for Stewart to move over following a stint on Knoll’s
personal dragster, assisting Mike Kloeber.

Confused yet?

Stewart
was living in a whirlwind, but recent successes working with Scotty Cannon and
Kloeber proved encouraging. The end result was another shot at tuning. This time
he’s assisted by veteran Lance Larsen.

“I was excited for the
opportunity,” Stewart said. “This was a good move and I am reunited with my
former crew and Melanie is a good driver. I’m happy with this.”

Max Naylor, driver of the popular Jagermeister Dodge
Stratus, continues to run well this season. Despite not winning a single round
of eliminations this year, the New Buffalo, Pa., resident has qualified at eight
of ten races in the extremely tough Pro Stock class.

Naylor, who is featured
on the ESPN television series 'American Dragster', was asked if having the TV
crews following him around affected his routine and performance when working on
the car.

Torco Race Fuels, the leader of high quality racing fuels, today announced that Evan Knoll,
Owner/President received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The
Year® 2007 Award in
the Automotive and Transportation category in the Lake Michigan Area
program. According to Ernst & Young,
the award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading
dynamic, growing businesses. Knoll was
selected by an independent panel of judges and the award was presented at an
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year gala event at Navy Pier, Chicago on June 22,
2007.

“You just go to work and do the best you can and the
reward is being successful,” Knoll said. “When you are recognized in this
fashion, it is the ultimate pat on the back. In this business you work at a
feverish pace and that leaves really no time to smell the roses. I am grateful
for this recognition and this is an honor I am thrilled to
receive.”

Last year the great divide between the racers and the NHRA was the timing
system. This season’s hot topic (literally) is track prep. During Saturday’s
qualifying the NHRA applied traction compound from the starting line for several
hundred feet out and ceased. They resumed from the finish line and several
hundred feet toward the starting line and ceased. The mid-range of the track was
left as is.

Many fuel teams smoked the tires at that point and a few made
it to the finish line. Those who didn’t make a full pull outweighed those who
did. The second-guessing ran rampant in the fuel pits as the teams wondered
where the consistency they had enjoyed in years prior had gone.

Dan Olson
of the NHRA had an explanation why the sanctioning body did what they did on
Saturday. Olson said the track temperatures climbed as high as 136.

“We
did that because it wasn’t so much over-sprayed as it had gotten soft out
there,” Olson said. “If we had sprayed it any more there would have been a track
problem. There was a little section that we didn’t spray on purpose because it
was coming apart and coming up. The rubber was tearing loose the
asphalt.”

Squelch the rumor mill. Cease the speculation. Oakley
has plans to be in the sport for at least two more years.

But even that
confidence couldn’t stop team owner Don Schumacher from having a Maalox moment.
For the second time this season, Schumacher has had a major sponsor sold.

Earlier this week, Luxottica agreed to buy Oakley for $2.03 billion in
order to add sports sunglasses to the Italian company’s Ray-Ban and Ralph Lauren
brands. This news comes just weeks after Daimler divorced Chrysler, selling 80%
of the group to private investors.

“You learn in a hurry that you just
deal with it,” said Schumacher. “I don’t think anything will change in the
Oakley program. They are still going to deliver a high quality product. I look
forward to continuing with Oakley.

“Time will tell. Everything changes
down the road. At this point, you just deal with it. Everything is in place for
the long term.”

Here’s the scenario for points leader
Ron Capps. You get in the field on Friday and test on Saturday and if things go right, you win on Sunday.

After
qualifying the Brut "Test Drive" Dodge Charger solidly in the field in No. 5
spot on Friday, Capps and crew chief Ed "Ace" McCulloch held a mini-test session
in the final qualifying pass during the heat of the day.

Capps quickest
qualifying pass of the weekend, a 4.775/319.90, came Friday night. His other
passes produced a 4.971/300.46, a 4.932/305.22, and a tire-smoking 9.757/86.56
in the aforesaid "testing" round.

"We all had a talk," said Capps, who
entered this event with a 140-point lead in the standings. "Ace was real
conscious about wanting to try to see what the track would hold. One great thing
about being in the field is having the chance to do what we did this
afternoon.